Reality Check in a Good Way

I made the statement today, twice in fact, that I have put over $9k in my savings account during the last year. That's about a quarter of my income too. I didn't realize the impact of my statement until I said it the second time, and mentally added that I was also debt free.* I'm stunning myself with my own progress, even though I make mistakes and wobble from time to time. $9k saved in a year is a Lot. Of. Money! Unfortunately, not all that money is still in my savings account. 2.76k went to pay off a credit card, but it earned a wee bit of interest before it did that. Another 3.26k has gone to specific kid expenses (for which I had planned and put money into savings).

Wow... I needed this kind of reality check. I get frustrated now and then with my guilt about lack of self-control over unplanned purchases, regardless of how small. And the near-constant penny pinching, while sometimes an enjoyable creative challenge, also has a tendency to wear me down. I mean, there are days I just wanna spend it ALL... and still restrain myself. So it's been eye-opening (ear-opening?) to hear those words hang in the air and know what they really mean. It gives my lunchtime PBJ and apple new grandeur, frankly.

Now... if I can just see some wonderful things in the arenas of weight-loss and smoking, I'll be feeling like a sexy wealthy healthy hot chick... instead of just a wealthy chick. I want it all!

Now... for the reason we're all here:

Monday's Wallet

• $34.99 online dating
• 7.38 smokes

Yes, I'm pathetic, please don't rub it in. I agreed with myself to try this dating site for one month and if I have some success I'll get a cheaper/month and longer subscription. At the moment though, I'm thinking that won't be the case. It's only been about a week that I've been a subscriber and already I find myself getting anxious about the lack of success. One plus is that I've made a new friend. One guy that cropped up happens to work for the same folks I do, though in a different department and building. He rejected me SO sweetly, that I can't help but have more respect for him, so I asked if we could be friends. There's an honest to goodness chance that I'll run into him somewhere on campus and wouldn't that be awkward if I had said mean things to him after his gentle and polite no-thank-you?

Tuesday's Wallet

• $2.?? Chocolate dessert

I almost didn't remember this purchase... and it wasn't worth it, frankly. Sure was pretty though. Chocolate crust, chocolate cheesecake, whipped cream, and chocolate icing, each layered very neatly and served ... in the round? It was a column o' goodness anyway. I should have taken a picture, I guess. *Debt free: Not completely true. I currently have a $400 balance on one credit card and about $2,500 left on my car. Both will be completely paid off by September 11, 2009.

Guilt-laden Spending

I opted to skip posting on Sunday, plus we stayed pretty busy all day. I think I will just keep it a regular thing to NOT post on Sundays, saving the day for myself, my girls, and church. In the meantime, I've spent lots of money on mostly good things. Saturday turned out to be a non-spending day. I'd been thinking about that for Friday, but it just didn't work out, so I did finally get one in. Well, sort of. I wrote checks and paid some bills:

• $36.04 cell phone bill
• $50.00 church donation
• $63.00 May lunch allowance
• $188.46 transfer to savings
• $140.00 CC payment

All these are normal and expected expenses. The church thing increases by $5.00 on a monthly basis because I'm trying to move it up somewhere closer to an actual "tithe". In a perfect world, I won't have a CC payment, and the savings amount will be higher. Once I've got the last CC knocked out, my goal is to keep it that way.

Sunday was a little worse. We went grocery shopping, and that actually turned out better than I had planned, but we also went to Walmart... for one thing... and ended up with several things. Of course, I justified each extra purchase, but it still could put me in the red at the end of the month. AND we went to lunch after church, but I had a gift card which I earned with my blood (very literally, I'm a platelet donor), and while the card was in my wallet, I'm not counting it as spending of any sort.

• $152.40 groceries (2 weeks)
• $62.01 random WM crap

The WM stuff bugs me, though I know each item will be useful, enjoyable, and/or make me smile.

• Picture frame for the soccer pics I ordered. It looks great makes me smile already. Think how I'll feel about it in 10 years when they're grown!
• Packing tape and dispenser. I'm moving in 5 weeks, so this is a definite necessity. We had one from our last move (14 years ago!), but the tape was ... old and gross and the dispenser rusted and cranky.
• Plastic boxes with lids. One for each of us to keep our random photos and, for the girls, school certificates. I've been looking for the appropriate size for these for a long while now. Having been a purchase I've thought about for a long time, I feel a lot less guilty about it.
• Black Sharpies. For marking moving boxes. I've been thinking about this one for a few weeks as well.
• One reusable "green" grocery sack. I've decided to hop on the bandwagon with these, but I'll do it one bag at a time. $1.00.
• 8x10 photo of BG. This is for the school play and was the reason I went to WM to begin with.
• V-neck tees and sweatpants. These were for LG, and I'll pay myself back for them from the savings I have for their clothing allowance.

As I talk about each item I feel good about them, until it comes time to look at the entire bill and put it into the checkbook register, then I feel guilty again. Ah well... it's not like I bought a pair of Jimmy Choo's or anything, I really have to give myself SOME credit.

hh.

First Weekend Post

Welcome to the first weekend post of Diary of a Wallet. I wish I could say I had a structure in mind for this, but I really don't, and honestly, I'm rarely even AT the computer on the weekends, so unless I get myself organized (hah!) and write in advance, it's unlikely that there will be many weekend postings. However, I wanted to get caught up and account for myself for the last two days' worth of spending, regardless. Thursday's Wallet

• $25.38 gasoline

This particular purchase was fraught with ... difficulty and I'm much less likely to fill up at that particular station in the near future, where I had been using it pretty regularly. It's usually got some of the lowest gas prices in the part of town which is a big plus, but it's an unattended station which can have it's drawbacks as you shall see.

I pulled up on the right side of the eastern most pump, #6. There was a woman on the opposite side using pump #7. Plunked my card in, selected the correct pump # and the display informed me it was already in use. Huh? No, I can see quite clearly that it's not: my car is next to it, the pump handle is in it's cradle, no liquid issues forth. I tried a couple times more with the same result. So I waited for the lady at #7 to finish thinking the computer was confused, but no. Same result after she had cradled her handle. After she left, I pulled around to the other side and had success... only it was going sooooo slowly. It took probably 5 minutes to fill my wee little 15 gallon tank which was indeed dang near empty. It was slow enough not to trigger the handle shut-off when my tank was full, so I got to pay for the gas spilt on the ground as well. Fortunately, I caught that fairly quickly and, as I said, it was really slow, so there just wasn't much spillage. THEN, there was no receipt printed. PLUS, I had broken a nail when I yanked the handle out of my tank. Computer error, no receipt, overfill, and broken nail. No, I wasn't a happy camper when I left, but at least I left with a full tank.

The better news? That's ALL I spent Thursday, go me!

I was actually shooting for a Zero Spending day on Friday, and I did get close, but:

Friday's Wallet

• $4.00 B&T for a BLT
• $2.00 beer

BG and her boyfriend had intended to go to a drive-in movie last night, but for whatever reason, they chose not to and came home instead, which was cool; I like spending time with them. However, I hadn't planned on fixing supper, as LG was with her dad for the night, and I'd expected BG to be out for the evening. Thus, I had nothing defrosted to prepare for them. BG can be pretty picky about her meals and isn't a big fan of sammich meats which we did have on hand so she got the notion in her head for a BLT which was a fabulous idea. The two pounds of Blue & Gold bacon I bought from someone's fundraiser was still in the freezer, and we only had one wee little roma tomato, so they went to the grocery store to pick up those things. I gave them the last $6 cash I had in my wallet and got $2 back.

By the time she got all the bacon fried up, my ride had arrived. The Niece and her boyfriend, T1 (of T&T) and I were set to go hear our favorite band play in the next town over. I contributed my remaining $2 to the beer pot and proceded to mooch from my friends the rest of the evening. Thank goodness they love me! I do try to pitch in now and then, but it never feels enough, in either frequency or quantity, to balance out how well my friends take care of me. The boyfriend, JH, got to jam with the band, I got to sing backup on my fave song, and shared some really... innuendo laden moments with two of the guys from the band. Rare for them to be quite that friendly with me, as they're both married, but it was fun and all innocent, and nobody went home with anyone they weren't supposed to.

Some days lately, I really despise being single, and other days I relish it. If I could actually go on a date in the near future, it might be less despicable. Yes, I'd like to play the field for a while, but it appears to be all rained out.

And now I have an oven to go clean, joy.

hh.

Anti-Procrastion

Today I found this:

• What is the best thing that can happen if I do this?
• What is the worst thing that can happen if I do this?
• What is the best thing that can happen if I don’t do it?
• What is the worst thing that can happen if I don’t do it?

at My Super-Charged Life, a blog about living life to the fullest, and I wanted to keep it and share it. So I did. This is the kind of thing I need to remember when I'm procrastinating as I am so often wont to do. Keeping these kinds of questions in mind might help me do better at helping other people as well. I guess this is mostly a note to myself, but I wanted others to have an opportunity to enjoy it as well. hh.